B747-400 flight crew discovered enroute that the aircraft shipset does not contain approach plates f...

Narrative:

We had the usual northerly route placing us 231 miles south of thule greenland and 354 miles north of sfj (the old sondrestrom); the first officer and I were reviewing the plates and information available to us in the new shipset publications; we were particularly interested in reviewing bgtl and bgsf as for a considerable period of time these would be our go to diversion airports (e.g. Uncontrollable cabin smoke and fire) we were pulling out these plates after departure and to our surprise found bgtl missing from both shipset bags. This is a very serious omission; I am assuming it was an omission due to the critical role bgtl would potentially play during an in-flight emergency when operating at high latitudes. I have had bgtl plates in my personal flight bag for years. It is my suspicion that no 400 shipsets contain bgtl; I truly hope that I am not correct in this. Please investigate this situation immediately; many of our polar and high latitude flights to and from europe will potentially be affected. Fortunately we found bgsf plates in both shipset bags; but unfortunately; it was further away from our flight track and a less adequate facility. I fly this same trip again in a few days and I certainly hope the shipsets are corrected by then. In any event I will carry my personal bgtl plates and information.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B747-400 flight crew discovered enroute that the aircraft shipset does not contain approach plates for the enroute alternate BGTL.

Narrative: We had the usual northerly route placing us 231 miles south of THULE Greenland and 354 miles north of SFJ (the Old Sondrestrom); the First officer and I were reviewing the plates and information available to us in the new shipset publications; we were particularly interested in reviewing BGTL and BGSF as for a considerable period of time these would be our go to diversion airports (e.g. uncontrollable cabin smoke and fire) we were pulling out these plates after departure and to our surprise found BGTL missing from both shipset bags. This is a very serious omission; I am assuming it was an omission due to the critical role BGTL would potentially play during an in-flight emergency when operating at high latitudes. I have had BGTL plates in my personal flight bag for years. It is my suspicion that NO 400 Shipsets contain BGTL; I truly hope that I am not correct in this. Please investigate this situation immediately; many of our polar and high latitude flights to and from Europe will potentially be affected. Fortunately we found BGSF plates in BOTH shipset bags; but unfortunately; it was further away from our flight track and a less adequate facility. I fly this same trip again in a few days and I certainly hope the shipsets are corrected by then. In any event I will carry my personal BGTL plates and information.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	850100
Time
Date	200909
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	BGTL.Airport
State Reference	FO
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B747-400
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 200 Flight Crew Total 21000 Flight Crew Type 1500
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

B747-400 flight crew discovered enroute that the aircraft shipset does not contain approach plates for the enroute alternate bgtl.